Gamification and behavior management platform provider Badgeville has appointed Kevin Comee, an experienced cloud and social technology executive, as its new CEO.

Comee’s resume includes stints as CEO of cloud integration specialist Cast Iron Systems -- which was acquired by IBM under his watch in May 2010 -- and more recently as CEO of PowerReviews, a provider of social software for ratings and reviews which Bazaarvoice acquired during his tenure.Badegeville founding CEO Kris Duggan will take on the role of Chief Strategy Officer and continue serving on the Board of Directors.

In a note to CMSWire, Badgeville PR executives said Comee’s hiring is “more than just a personnel announcement” but is an effort to “grow Badgeville appropriately as gamification continues to go mainstream.”

Badgeville highlighted Comee’s cloud and social experience and said his hire “demonstrates how Badgeville is growing to meeting global market demand for enterprise gamification.”

Another aspect of Comee’s background which Badgeville did not mention but CMSWire could not help notice was that he oversaw two companies get purchased by larger firms. Badgeville has not said or done anything to indicate it is planning on going up for sale anytime soon, but it is a trend worth mentioning.

Taking Gamification to the Next Level

According to VentureBeat, Comee’s hire is part of an effort by Badgeville to take gamification to the next level of adoption as it becomes a strategy increasingly applied to new areas such as sales and training. Gamification to this point has primarily been an externally-focused methodology used to increase customer engagement and loyalty, but companies are starting to more actively use it internally as well. VentureBeat also says founder Duggan will retain an active role with the company, “(continuing) his work evangelizing gamification, which sometimes has a long sales cycle.”

Rebirth of the Cool

Badgeville has already established itself as a leader in the still nascent gamification space, but obviously is not content to sit on its laurels. As evidence of Badgeville’s status, consider that Gartner named Badgeville one of its Cool Vendors in the Social CRM space in May 2012. The Badgeville platform received kudos for enabling companies to track users and integrate with content management and commenting systems. Gartner said marketing and customer service department’s community managers and brands that are searching for greater customer engagement would have the most interest in Badgeville.

However, Gartner did mention some challenges facing Badgeville. As reported by CMSWire, “The market for solutions like this is not well developed yet and many of the vendors involved are small in terms of size and revenue. Competition is also tough from traditional marketing automation vendors and community vendors, which are able to incorporate many of the above functions into their products.”

Obviously Badgeville feels Comee has the experience and background to grow Badgeville to a point it can successfully compete with larger rivals (or perhaps become an attractive acquisition target for one of them).

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